Yugoslav Drama Theatre, premiere 27th December 2024
The beginning of Dušan Kovačević’s play St. George Slays the Dragon is set in that precarious moment of Serbian history in 1914, not long after the end of two consecutive Balkan wars that left the population ravaged, and just before the First World War, that claimed 28 percent of the country’s population. The main focus of the story is on the last days of fragile peace and the beginning of the new fighting, though naming the play a historical drama would not be accurate as historical characters are only mentioned, while the plot is driven by everyday characters, mostly peasants from the Mačva region, who jointly represent the true protagonist – the Serbian people. While they try to lead an ordinary, humble existence – disabled by war injuries and impoverished by the abysmal economy – they quarrel and discuss politics at a local tavern and engage in love affairs that create conflicts between them. The message is clear: while the people are consumed by petty grievances and infighting, a larger, existential threat looms.
After the first two stagings of this play in 1986, one at Atelje 212 and the other at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, the director Milan Nešković brings this work back into focus by a new iteration at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre. It is a production faithful to the textual material. Nešković and the dramaturg Jelena Mijović hardly changed the play at all, minimally shortening the dialogue and cutting out a few episodic characters, while keeping the realistic story within its original historical context. The absence of any significant directorial or dramaturgical interventions points to Nešković’s and Mijović’s faith that the play’s qualities and ideological message about the Serbian people will communicate well with the audience. And it also seems that the management of Yugoslav Drama Theatre believes in this production – not only does the show have an ensemble of 17 actors but also a huge, expensive, dominating scenography (Gorčin Stojanović) that’s rarely seen on Serbian stages; scenography that first represents a hill with a forest and a tavern in its foothill. Later, this construction will part like the Red Sea in front of Moses, revealing a battlefield with a small pool of water. In one scene, even a house will be brought down from the heights, which will continue to levitate throughout the scene, with two actresses and an actor performing inside or on the verge of it (more on that later).
The director’s and the theatre’s blind faithfulness to the text might be the biggest problem of the show. While there is no denying Kovačević’s remarkable trace in the history of playwriting, St. George Slays the Dragon is hardly one of his better plays. The play’s narrative macro-strategy – and its ideological pinpoint – of showing us the petty quarrels among the representatives of Serbian people who are unaware that a larger, outside threat is approaching, only works out at the end when the First World War starts. In the meantime, a strong story or another narrative device is needed to keep the play going, but what Kovačević opted for is a simple, conventional melodramatic love-triangle story about a disabled ex-soldier, a woman from the village and her husband. And even the love triangle occupies a minority of the space, while the rest is filled with static, meandering talkativeness of the villagers who ramble on about their daily affairs and political events, in the style of a modern unsynchronized chorus. So the reason why this almost two-and-a-half-hour-long production feels too long lies primarily in the shortcomings of the text that were faithfully translated into the stage adaptation.
St George Slays the Dragon, Yugoslav Drama Theatre. Photo: Nebojsa Babic
On the other hand, the true engine of the production and its backbone quality is the director’s work with the ensemble of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre that managed to keep the performative fire burning through most of the adaptation of this overwritten play. Milan Marić and Nikola Rakočević – representing two rivals, struggling for the love of one woman – offer two different versions of men beaten up by society. While Marić plays his character as more choleric and forward in expressing his emotions, Rakočević brings his character to life as more dispirited and emotionally repressed, although he stands up for himself in critical situations. Jovana Belović brings fierceness and rebelliousness to her role of Katarina, a woman in a male-dominated world who, thanks to her resilience, is not a love object between the two male characters, but actively chooses between them. The majority of other actors also find the right tone in presenting their characters, although there are some instances of caricature, like Srđan Timarov’s role of the Greek doctor (to be fair, this should also be blamed on the text that uses the inability to speak perfect Serbian as a primary method of characterization).
Another aspect of Kovačević’s play that’s run over by time is its treatment of female characters. Not only are there only two female roles in a vast array of characters, they do not pass the Bechdel test, which means that there is not a single scene where they do not talk with a man or about a man. The men are present in public and discussing local and political circumstances, the women are entrapped in domestic life. Although Nešković and Mijović didn’t change this dynamic in their adaptation, the show at least commented on the problem with Stojanović’s set designed by putting them in one scene in a life-sized levitating house that brings to mind both a doll’s house and a cage.
But not all elements of the show contribute to it as much as the set design does. The director’s decision to replace the songs from the play with new ones written by Duda Buržujka and composed by Vladimir Pejković created an unelaborated incoherence within the show’s historical period aesthetic. Both the lyrics and the music are of a distinct contemporary pop-rock style, out of tune with the other elements of the show, such as Biljana Grgur’s consistent period costume. The songs also don’t have an integral role within the show but serve either as a sentimental amplifier of romantic scenes or as a background during transitions.
What stays unclear at the end is not only why the management of Yugoslav Drama Theatre chose St. George Slays the Dragon for their new production, given the play’s flaws and old-fashioned character, but why Nešković staged it with such adoration of the text. If the director had a more daring approach to interpreting the play, its problems might have been avoided. But what’s possibly the motivation behind putting a play such as this on the repertoire is its populist side. Behind stories about Serbian disunity in the face of danger lies a message that there’s no telling of what we could do as a nation if we only united. These stories usually sell well at the box office.
Credits:
Director: Milan Nešković//Adaptation: Jelena Mijović and Milan Nešković//Scenography: Gorčin Stojanović//Costumes: Biljana Grgur//Dramaturg: Jelena Mijović//Composer: Vladimir Pejković
For tickets and further information, visit: jdp.rs
Borisav Matić is a critic and dramaturg from Serbia. He is the Regional Managing Editor at The Theatre Times. He regularly writes about theatre for a range of publications and media.
He’s a member of the feminist collective Rebel Readers with whom he co-edits Bookvica, their platform for literary criticism, and produces literary shows and podcasts. He occasionally works as a dramaturg or a scriptwriter for theatre, TV, radio and other media. He's the administrator of IDEA - the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association.
